would I be in trouble? Just asking.
Posted on 01/29/2014 7:14:41 AM PST by conniew
By Andrew Duffy, OTTAWA CITIZEN January 28, 2014
OTTAWA — The online political forum, Free Dominion, has shut down after a wholesale defeat in a libel case brought by Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman.
A jury concluded that Warman was maliciously defamed by four commentators on Free Dominion, a website that bills itself as “the voice of principled conservatism.”
Warman has been awarded more than $127,000 in general damages, aggravated damages, punitive damages and court costs because of 41 defamatory statements published on the conservative website in 2007.
Warman rose to prominence during the past decade by using the Canadian Human Rights Act to shut down the websites of people spreading hate speech; it made him the target of free speech advocates in the conservative blogosphere, and on websites such as Free Dominion.
In a recently released decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith granted Warman a permanent injunction that prohibits Free Dominion from ever repeating “in any manner whatsoever” any of the 41 defamations.
The website’s operators, Connie and Mark Fournier, of Kingston, this week shut down freedominion.ca, saying they could not control what comments other people posted.
“By leaving the forum open and allowing people to comment, we’d be opening ourselves to a contempt-of-court charge,” Connie Fournier said Tuesday.
“If someone repeated one of those comments, we would be in trouble — and could even go to jail.”
The Fourniers have operated the website as a “labour of love” for the past 13 years.
“It’s really sad to be at the point where we have to shut down the political forum,” she said. “But we’ve come to the point where it would be crazy for us to keep it open: it would be too much of a risk.”
They have vowed to appeal the defamation case and have launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise money for their legal costs. The campaign has so far raised $2,800 of its $25,000 goal.
The Warman case is among the first to address at trial what constitutes defamation in the caustic political blogosphere. It adds to case law that suggests the Internet does not shield anonymous posters from legal action if they wrongfully attack someone’s reputation.
On his website, Warman said the case offers lessons for anyone involved in an Internet blog or forum. Chief among them, he said, is the idea that “If you make a mistake, admit it, repair the harm, and move on.”
Connie Fournier, however, said that if the case stands on appeal it will impair the once vibrant Canadian blogosphere.
“I think this is a terrible thing for free speech on the Internet,” she said. “When people who are allowing comments on their blogs and forums look at humongous costs and damage rulings like this, at injunctions that could put them in jail, they’re not going to want to take the risk of opening their site.”
The jury found that the four defendants — Roger Smith, Jason Bertucci, Connie and Mark Fournier — had been “malicious, high-handed and oppressive” in their conduct. Justice Smith also found the defendants had acted unreasonably by refusing to accept Warman’s offer to settle the case for $5,000 each.
Warman had to fight in court to obtain the identifies of those anonymous posters who had left defamatory comments on Free Dominion. The case dragged on for six years, culminating in a three-week trial before a six-person jury.
The Fourniers have never apologized or issued a retraction about the statements found to be defamatory.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
The equivalent of Stalin's thought police. I'm sure this is a tool Obama's socialist regime will use against Americans too. The demoncrats are shooting for Limbaugh and FOX News now, but they want all conservatives muzzled. Ain't liberalism grand. Good luck to you and Connie. God bless.
Thank you, Jim.
The State hates and fears what it cannot control.
The law under which we were attacked by the Canadian Human Rights Commission has since been repealed, in part due to its unmerited attack against Free Dominion, so now the censors are using defamation law as a sword to silence political opinion.
We will now be working to have defamation laws updated or completely repealed.
The censors in Canada are like the Borg, but resistance is not futile.
Stay strong. You and Connie have much to be proud of and I'm honored to know you.
We will be appealing, but until the injunction against us is gone we have to keep Free Dominion closed. Any troll could register at Free Dominion, post forbidden words, take a screen shot and we would go direct to jail. If we took down the post immediately it wouldn't help us at all.
The judge in this case didn't rule, "You must immediately shut down Free Dominion," but the effect of his ruling is exactly the same as if he had used those words.
They can’t say without getting arrested. Tyranny is running rampant everywhere.
It's coming to the US. Just look at the travesty of the Michael Mann/Mark Steyn case.
Sad commentary, that.
Thank you, Jim. I’m sure you know you have been a huge inspiration to us over the years, and I’m grateful that, so far, you have managed to keep the wolves at bay!
We’re all in this together!
Maybe it’s time to post remarks that you know will get you attacked and libeled on sites like the Huffington Post, Moveon.org, The Daily Kos and every other one you can think of. Then ask for $5,000 from each site for each post. You’ll either make a lot of money or the liberal sites would shut down. Or a constitutional judge would throw the cases out which would be a victory for free speech.
It is easy enough to submit to Drudge. I think the more people that submit the Ottawa Citizen article, the more likely it is that Drudge will run with it.
“I guess we have our answer.”
For a Canada hosted website, yes.
Oh and by the way, great to have you.
would I be in trouble? Just asking.
This is outrageous. It was already outrageous that anonymous posters were outed.
Which means in the US you have actual free speech. We don’t have that in Canada.
Our website is hosted in Panama.
Unfortunately, we live in Canada. :-(
Thanks for the welcome!
That’s it — put it in the form of a question.
Where are the comments on the Ottawa Citizen article. Were they pulled?
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